It's Not That Big a Deal

Sanders Supporters: Why Fall in Line?

On June 6, 2016, the New York Times ran this article claiming that Clinton had clinched the nomination the day before the California and five other states head to the polls to vote in the primaries. The article, based on a poll by the Associated Press, claims that Clinton has secured enough superdelegate votes to effectively guarantee her the ticket, regardless of the turnout yesterday. The timing was…serendipitous, shall we say. All in all a fitting end to the Democratic primaries.

Anyone following the election will be familiar with the growing sentiment that our political process has been hijacked by elites. To paraphrase candidates Trump and Sanders: that we have a rigged system. This surprise announcement—that voters in six states have been rendered obsolete by the markedly undemocratic superdelegate system—will surely do nothing to alleviate such disquiet.

I haven’t been shy of critiquing Sanders’ ideas from my little soapbox. He made the economy a cornerstone of his campaign and then displayed approximately zero economic acumen (in my opinion at least–plenty of people find him compelling). But for all of the eye-roll-inducing statements he made over the past year, his campaign has been a breath of fresh air. It brought to light the extent to which establishment Democrats are perceived to have failed the working class (Trump did the same for the Republicans) and underscored that there are big ideological divisions within the Democratic Party.

It also brought a troublesome revelation for many longtime Democratic voters: some of those “Washington insiders” against whom they rallied to the beat of Sanders’ war drum have a “D” prefixed to their state. That disillusionment is sure to haunt the Party as it charges into November under the banner of a candidate under federal investigation for at least the fourth time.

Now Sanders and his supporters will be told (in truth, continue to be told) that it’s time to turn back into a pumpkin and fall in line. My advice to them: don’t.

I won’t go on a diatribe here—Clinton has plenty of merit as a candidate and is certainly “qualified” to be president, to whatever extent one can be qualified for a unique position. But she and her awkward, halting coronation represent everything wrong with American politics: the presumptuous attitude of entitlement; the ethos of a benevolent dictator; the impunity of the well-connected; the fallacy that less terrible is synonymous with good.

In 1964, Malcolm X observed that while Democrats were getting into office on the black vote, black political support was being taken for granted. I’d say the same point applies to any demographic or individual. If a voter is really into Sanders’ ideas, most of which are rooted in some spirit of protectionism, how do they rationalize supporting a pronounced neoliberal like Clinton?

Vote (or don’t vote) for whomever, for whatever reason you find compelling. But Bernie supporters shouldn’t reward a political party that persistently refused to take their candidate seriously out of a sense of obligation to “party unity.”